Gaza doctors use 3D tech to save limbs shattered by Israel from amputation 

Doctors in Gaza battling the odds after the enclave’s medical infrastructure was obliterated by Israel’s genocidal war on the besieged enclave have found an ingenious way of saving Palestinians from losing fractured limbs.

With hospitals struggling to function under frequent electricity blackouts, the territory’s resourceful medics are harnessing the power of the sun to power 3D printers creating medical devices for the kinds of complex fractures that have become commonplace under relentless Israeli bombing.

Dr Fadel Naim, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and acting director general of al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera that medics were manufacturing so-called external fixators used to support shattered limbs from low-cost 3D-printed components made from recycled materials.

“The types of the fracture we receive, especially in this war, were so complicated, so complex that the external fixator is the most suitable [treatment],” he explained, demonstrating how the devices are assembled at minimal cost using the 3D components, metal rods and nuts and bolts.

Naim worked with medical solidarity organisation Glia to lead the innovation in the enclave, creating fixators that would ordinarily cost more than $500 apiece from an open-source design, with no limits on manufacture thanks to the use of solar energy.

Al Jazeera met Zakaria, one of three patients whose limbs were spared amputation after being fitted with locally produced fixators. Displaced southwards from the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza to Deir el-Balah, he was the first patient to receive treatment using the device after shrapnel from an Israeli strike shattered his leg.

“I was injured in August and I was taken to the hospital without any medical care, but after two weeks, they brought me to the operation room and used a new device to fix my leg. To my surprise, it was a Palestinian-made device,” said Zakaria, sitting in his tent.

“He has no pain, has no limitation of range of motion, he can walk,” said Dr Naim, assessing his patient.

Reporting from Gaza, Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary said the pioneering technology was “a lifeline in Gaza that’s completely lost its electricity supplies and where the health system is collapsing”.

“In a place where everything is being destroyed, Palestinian doctors are still creating, still resisting, still saving lives – one printed piece at a time,” she said.

Glia said in a news release that 12 more patients are currently awaiting treatment, “demonstrating both the urgent need for these devices and the life-saving impact of local production under siege”.

The organisation said the Gaza-led project had “global significance”, demonstrating how the technology could be used in “extreme conditions” and “offering a model for other conflict zones, disaster-affected regions, and climate-vulnerable communities worldwide”.

Israeli military operations have devastated Gaza throughout the war, with 63 percent of hospitals remaining out of commission as of December 9.

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reported last month that 282,000 housing units have been destroyed in the enclave, where about 1.5 million Palestinians remain displaced.

More than 70,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel unleashed its full-scale assault on the enclave following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.